Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday asked the country’s indigenous Mexica peoples for forgiveness for the abuses inflicted on them during the bloody 1521 Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire.

Lopez Obrador spoke in front of a large replica temple built to commemorate 500 years since the fall of the ancient Aztec capital Tenochtitlan to Hernan Cortes, the leader of the invading Spanish force and the armies of his indigenous allies.

Cortes and his allies defeated the Aztec leaders and the Mexica people who lived in Tenochtitlan, which later became Mexico City. {snip}

“Today we remember the fall of the great Tenochtitlan and we apologize to the victims of the catastrophe caused by the Spanish military occupation of Mesoamerica and the territory of the current Mexican Republic,” Lopez Obrador said.

Lopez Obrador has said the Spanish monarchy and Roman Catholic Church should formally apologize for the atrocities committed during the conquest.

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“The conquest and colonization are signs of backwardness, not of civilization, less of justice,” he said.

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